As its name implies, a NAS is high-capacity storage that connects to your home or office network so that you and other users you designate can access your files from mobile devices and PCs without plugging in to the drive. Instead, consider a good network-attached storage (NAS) device. There are ways to allow other users to share and access the files on your hard drive, but they can be challenging to set up and carry security risks. While you can certainly use an external hard drive for offloading and backing up files from your PC (and by extension, from your phone), if you disconnect the hard drive and leave it in your office, you won't be able to get to those files from another location, and neither will anyone else. In this age of high-resolution photos and near-constant video capture, the storage space in your PCs and mobile devices fills up faster than ever. Read our editorial mission (Opens in a new window) & see how we test (Opens in a new window).

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